GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 473 



supposed we might be. It -would not cost the tremendous figures that 

 have been suggested to encourage enough shift to increase j^our live- 

 stock consumption even if you simply subsidized it to the extent of 

 carrying it out in the middle of the ocean and dropping it in the middle 

 of the ocean. 



You could increase your livestock production without the expendi- 

 ture of as much money as has been suggested, could you not? 



Mr. Kline. I am not at all sure that you can. What is your theory? 



Mr. PoAGE. If you simply followed the potato program, which I am 

 not advocating, on an additional 5 percent of livestock production, it 

 would not cost any 12, 15, or 20 billion dollars as has been suggested, 

 would it ? 



Mr. Kline. In the first place, what you are suggesting we in the 

 Farm Bureau believe is the most effective method. A little demand in 

 the market place has an extraordinary effect on farm prices. 



Mr. PoAGE. I agree with you on that. 



Mr. Kline. With regard to what you can do in the matter of surplus 

 disposal, again we are in agreement with regard to such things as 

 the stamp plan, the school lunch, and that sort of thing, to do the 

 things you suggest. Of course, we could not take it out and dump it 

 in the ocean because socially and politically it would not be feasible at 

 all to do that with livestock or livestock products. 



Mr. Poage. That is true but socially and politically if it is money 

 in the pockets of the American farmer and a saving to the American 

 taxpayer, if those two things could be accomplished by an increase 

 of 5 percent in livestock, then we could ship it to the Chinese or ship 

 it to almost anybody else and let them eat it and save ourselves a sub- 

 stantial amount of money, as I understand your testimony. 



Mr. Kline. Let me go to hogs because I know them best. If we 

 have a support price of $1.46 on corn, which was suggested under the 

 income-standard plan that has been recently proposed to this commit- 

 tee, and if we had $19 on hogs, we would then have a corn-hog ratio 

 of 13. If, on the other hand we liad a price of $16.50 on hogs and we 

 leave the price of corn, then we have a corn-hog ratio of 11.3. We 

 do not encl up, then, with an increase in pork. We probably end up 

 with a decrease in pork. What I am saying is that there is an inter- 

 relationship between these things that when you get into administered 

 prices then you substitute someone's judgment ahead of time for a lot 

 of these things which are an interplay that the individual farmer 

 takes into consideration in_the fall when he breeds sows for spring 

 and in the spring when he breeds sows for fall, in calculating what the 

 various things are that he could do with feed. He could increase his 

 dairy herd and feed some cattle or raise some more hogs. He figures 

 all these various costs and then he decides whether to increase his hog 

 production or not. 



That does not give a direct answer to your question. It raises what, 

 to my mind, is a very difficult area in the discussion. It is one where 

 I think that you could be overconfident that with a little money you 

 could do this thing. I think it would probably cost a great deal more 

 than is envisioned. 



Mr. Poage. Mr. Kline, all I am trying to get at is that if you are 

 correct in your statement to Mr. Hill, by increasing our livestock i)opu- 

 lation and being able to sell an extra 5 percent, we c(»uld care for all 



